What makes software cool
Brian Pereira | 23 October 2008
| I've seen PC desktop software evolve over a span of almost two decades and I have a fair idea of what makes for good software. But before I go on to answer the question in the title, I’d like to revisit the software Hall of Fame; for that we have to sit in a time machine and go back to 1989. The applications in the early 90s were modular and light (because of the 640 KB memory limitation at that time). So if you needed, say, just the basic functionality of Wordstar (wordprocessor) or Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheet), you could copy just the one EXE file onto the 5.25-inch floppy disk, and it would run straight off the floppy! Entire games like Test Drive (Accolade) and F-19 (Microprose) would fit on a single floppy disk. Ditto for system utilities. Then there was the ubiquitous MS DOS. I recall the feeling of sheer power while learning all those DOS internal and external commands. There were other notable examples of fine software. Borland’s Quattro Pro (a powerful spreadsheet), WordPerfect (a word processor for self-respecting secretaries), Foxpro (a big improvement over dBase III and IV), Clipper (a programming environment that was more powerful than FoxPro’s), the Turbo C compiler (which made compiling code so smooth), Lotus Jazz (an MS Office like suite with tightly integrated modules), Lotus Notes (used to this day in organizations), Lotus 1-2-3 (the de facto spreadsheet program of the early 90s), and Novell Netware (a nice client-server network OS). Why do you think they were hits in their time? Each application is powerful and has all the functions required to get our tasks done. They all work as they are expected to, with minimal disruption (unless there is a virus attack). Interfaces are intuitive. More importantly, these applications made optimum use of the hardware. In fact enhancements for components like Graphics cards and memory were preempted by successive versions of these applications. How should I react when an application or operating system suddenly freezes and throws up an error message like “Fatal Exception 0E Error”? I don’t see meaningless error messages like this when Firefox crashes. Instead, it helpfully asks if it should save the session, so that I can get right back to where I was when I reload it. Now that’s being thoughtful, and it saves me time too. Firefox itself is well designed. It's modular—you install the core module and then customize it with extensions. And the updates are so light—just a 100 KB or so. If the OS cannot recognize a peripheral because of a missing driver, then it should go out to the Internet, fetch the driver from the manufacturer’s site and install it. The software should integrate well with all the standard applications on the PC: the default browser, e-mail client, PDF reader, anti-virus, and office automation applications. If I don’t want to use an application anymore, it should uninstall completely, removing all traces of its existence from the Start menu, Program files folder, Windows System folder and the Windows Registry. I don’t need bloatware that gets fatter with each update, because my system memory isn’t increasing to keep up with it. On behalf of the CHIP team, I wish all our readers a Happy Diwali. |
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